Obama's first year: On environment, big changes but little notice

This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration. The economy, war and health care are dominating discussions about what he has or hasn't accomplished.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration. The economy, war and health care are dominating discussions about what he has or hasn't accomplished.

Yet with little notice from the public, Obama has been steadily rewriting a major area of American policy — the environment — from global warming to gas mileage rules, logging to endangered species. Many of his initiatives have particular impact on California.

After methodically reversing many of the Bush administration's environmental policies, with little help from Congress, Obama is drawing criticism from Republican and industry leaders who say his actions threaten job growth, as well as cheers from environmentalists who call the changes overdue.

"This is by far the best first year on the environment of any president in history, including Teddy Roosevelt," said Carl Pope, national executive director of the Sierra Club, in San Francisco. "Most presidents have done their best environmental work late in their term. This is a very, very strong opening."

Critics predict many of the changes will end up in court.

"There's no doubt they have been super active. They seem to be throwing a lot of policies at the wall and seeing which ones stick. But not all of them are going to stick," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for Bracewell & Giuliani, a Houston law firm that lobbies on behalf of oil refineries, electric utilities and other industries.

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Obama didn't use the word "environment" in his inaugural speech Jan. 20, 2009. But as president, he has:

Increased gas mileage standards for cars and light trucks 40 percent, from today's 25 mpg to 35 mpg by 2016. The announcement in May came as part of Washington's bailout of Detroit.

Blocked Bush administration rules to open the California coast and 77 federal sites near Utah's Arches and Canyonlands national parks to new oil and gas drilling.

Begun a process in December in which the Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time, restrict the amount of greenhouse gases industry can release.

Signed a bill in March establishing 2.1 million new acres of federally protected wilderness, the largest wilderness bill since President Bill Clinton signed the Desert Protection Act in 1994. The bill bans logging, mining and road-building on federal forests and deserts in nine states, including portions of Joshua Tree and Sequoia national parks and ancient bristlecone pine forests in the eastern Sierra.

Announced tougher new national smog standards from the EPA this month.

Signed a stimulus package that included more than $50 billion in funding and tax credits for renewable energy projects. It includes billions to weatherize federal buildings, provide grants to companies building solar and wind farms and fund research on biofuels and other technologies.

In many years, Obama would have taken on a reputation as a green president. But with unemployment at 10 percent and millions of homes in foreclosure, everything else pales, say experts.

"He's had significant accomplishments in the environmental field, but he hasn't put much emphasis on it, and the issues have been swallowed up by bigger concerns like the economy," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Most of the changes have come through executive branch rules, rather than laws passed by Congress. As a result, they could be overturned by future presidents.

Although the House passed a bill setting up a mandatory cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, for example, it is stalled in the Senate. And although he flew to Copenhagen to personally negotiate for a new global warming treaty, Obama failed to secure an agreement with binding reductions.

Environmental groups have grumbled that Obama upheld Bush rules to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list in the upper Midwest, Idaho and Montana. He also has not moved as fast as they would like to stop a type of coal mining in West Virginia known as "mountain top removal."

Republicans also have criticized many of the moves. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has repeatedly called proposed global warming rules "a national energy tax" that would raise gas prices and power bills for middle-class families.

Even when the administration has approved major environmental changes, it often has couched them in the language of creating jobs.

"It really is a new day," said Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board. "When things clear up a little bit and people can focus on things other than whether they have a job, he'll get more credit."

Contact Paul Rogers at 408-920-5045.

Obama on the environment

Among the environmental accomplishments of his first year in office, President Barack Obama has:Increased gas mileage standards for cars and light trucks 40 percent, to 35 mpg by 2016Signed a bill establishing 2.1 million new acres of federally protected wilderness, the largest such bill since 1994Blocked Bush administration rules on offshore oil drilling and endangered species protectionsDirected more than $50 billion in funding and tax credits for renewable energy projects